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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Veldrane" data-source="post: 1251788" data-attributes="member: 1987">I'm about to play a Weretiger charachter (natural lycanthrope, so that I retain my alignment), and I'll take Vow of Poverty  at level 1.The text about Vow of Povery (BoED, page 29) says "A character who swears a Vow of Poverty and takes the appropriate feats  [...] cannot own magic items but he gains certain spiritual benefits that can help outweigh the lack of those items. These  benefits depend on his Character Level".Now, the best definition of "Character Level" is in the Savage Species and states: "When a creature's description refers to  character level, add any class level it has to the base creature' HD to determine the Character Level. This is not the same  as Effective Character Level which alse includes level adjustment. The creature's base save and base attack bonuses are based  on its character level. [...]"So , my +3 LA for the lycanthrope template is sort of a burden, due to the fact that, by the rules as they stand now, I am  given abilities from the VoP feat later than another creature with the same ECL but no LA.When I was showing the new character to my gaming group, they pointed me out that maybe that "Character Level" means  "Effective Character Level". I looked again in the SS and found:Effective Character Level (ECL): A creature's efective character level is the sum of its level adjustment (LA), Hit Dice and  class levels. Use character level for all game functions except awarding experience, determining starting equipment   and determining how much experience the character needs to gain a level. All three of those functions use Effective Character  Level instead" (Emphasis mine).So, when creating a new character, the starting equipment depends on his ECL. That is obviously true also when determining  character wealth by level and so on.Vow of Poverty is/should be an option that gives the chance -at the cost of spending two feats and renouncing to all kinds of  magic items- to play a character who gets partial compensation for that renounce in form of various abilities.Now, if the VoP feat was written to compensate with increasing by level abilities the loss of magic items (that, of course,  increase by level as well), why this should be true only to non LA characters?I mean, taking it to the extreme, a +19 LA, 1 HD Character gets the character wealth of a 20th level character (760.000 gp),  while, if the same character wanted to burn two feats and take VoP, gets only the first level abilities?Ok, this is pushing it a little, but that is the mechanic; I mean, a +x LA character who wants to take VoP should get shafted  in terms of equipment (or equipment-substituting-abilities) just because he choose VoP instead of Magic Items & Gold (where  he would be on par with his comrades)?I know what the rules say, and I'll probably ask my DM to houserule it, but, before, I'd like to know what is the consensus  on the topic is..Any comment will be appreciated</blockquote>

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